This is probably no surprise to anyone as it is happening all over in healthcare when the for profits move in and cut down to bare bones sometimes. Back in November of 2010 the GAO stated that they could not get enough data from the homes owned by private equity firms, although I could bet there might be plenty of “revenue cycling” data laying around perhaps. That is what seems to take priority today, revenue cycling over care.

We had one situation here in California that got so bad with the financial side that they exhausted their insurance coverage for legal cases and fines so according to this latest report things are not moving along much better. Medicare cuts to nursing homes don’t help either.

So what do we do, put all the residents on Facebook to talk about the conditions with an HHS Facebook program? I say this in jest as we have some nutty folks out there that think giving away any privacy you have left and developing an app is going to save the world, when in fact folks are more likely to use it the wrong way but denial keeps this possibility from surfacing. Again, lack of executives in how data is used and evaluated is a huge problem today and thus we get the somewhat digital illiterates making whacked out decision like this, a contest so maybe HHS can work and get some Facebook pills? This is is so ridiculous and again shows “non participation” with executives in general consumer Health IT, otherwise they would know better. Facebook is not the one and only cure all with some new algorithms for goodness sakes, but non participants can’t tell the difference.

I don’t see any Facebook pills or Twitter clinics coming to the rescue here with reality. Hospice isn’t looking much better for that matter, so what do we do there, get the patients in the nursing homes a scribe for their Facebook application use?? It was stated yesterday that the new privacy on Facebook doesn’t apply for apps so your bare bottom is still somewhat hanging out there.

So instead of seeing what the reality is we just look at aggregated numbers and ask “how’s that happening”…analytics are good and make us smarter but they are not the answer when action is need but rather should direct us into the areas that need to be addressed, like the GAO is trying to do here. Anyway, if we could all get on the same path and use analytics a bit better and stop with some of the nonsense, perhaps progress would be made. BD

“It is troubling to learn that even with the preponderance of quality improvement initiatives, ombudsman advocacy work and government inspections (which providers often claim as ‘burdensome’ and ‘overregulating’) deficiencies continue to spike in these homes”

“It is troubling to learn that even with the preponderance of quality improvement initiatives, ombudsman advocacy work and government inspections (which providers often claim as ‘burdensome’ and ‘overregulating’) deficiencies continue to spike in these homes,” said Lee. “It seems everyone knows that nursing home quality hinges on a high number of well-trained, direct care staff…everyone that is, but the nursing home industry.”

The report (GAO-11-571) is the second government report that stems from a 2007 New York Times critique of the management of care and services conducted by private investment (PI) firms of massive nursing home conglomerates. The Times reported that resident care suffered in part from cutbacks on nurse staffing to increase profitability.

The new report also revealed that serious deficiencies went down and registered nursing hours went up. “It is encouraging to learn that serious deficiencies are declining in some of these nursing homes. This translates into fewer residents experiencing the agony of improperly treated bed sores, fewer medication errors and fewer resident elopements,” said Lee.

But Lee and his group remain cautious about the mixed results, calling them “illusory.

Dark Arts of Mathemical Deception

Professor Charlie Siefe of NYU, a mathematician debunks clinical trials, and few other items to where data is spun and fools you, every day example, hear about the perfect butt algorithm and more. These are probably some things you have never thought about but again after listening to what he has to say, it’s time to think about being skeptical. Here’s a radio show that also talks about the same topics.

This video digs in a bit further with how fictitious business models are used by banks and companies do this too. The models are so complex that CEOs don’t even understand them. “Quants, The Alchemists of Wall Street will take you through how “math models” work at banks and financial institutions in a way that even the layman can understand. More videos like over at theAlgo Duping/Killer Algorithm Page. Bank of America will also tell you“IT’ is a business” how they make money.

Weapons of Math Destruction

This is a lecture where Kathy O’Neill, a former Quant who worked for a Hedge Fund (Weapons of Math Destruction) on Wall Street will tell you what is done with your retirement money and more. The banks and companies use technology to take advantage because they can. “Of course we are going to take advantage because our tools are our brains…if they could figure out a way to take advantage of pension funds they would, a good interview with explaining smart money and dumb money.

Algorithms Shape The World

This is a very good presentation done a TED Conference and really was the one that got everyone started thinking about algorithms and today it’s talked about a lot. As he says “if you’re an algorithm, life is looking pretty good, but can’t say the same for humans”. What is a black box? Nobody has any control over the flash crash. We have moved forward a bit but still we are writing the unreadable and lost the sense of some of what is happening. Nice plug for Nanex here with research.